


The Temper Tantrums

by wheel_pen



Series: Finn [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clones, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4683494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m bored! Bored, bored, bored, BORED!”—socially isolated five-year-old, or genius consulting detective? In other news, John is a saint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.  
> This story has not been Britpicked. Please let me know if I get anything horribly wrong.  
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

“I’m bored! Bored, bored, bored, BORED!” This was accompanied by stomping across the wooden floor, rattling the carefully-arrayed glassware on the counter to an alarming degree.

John was at a loss. “There’s your new books—“

“BORING!”

“—new exhibit at the museum—“

“BORING!”

“—let you use my computer,” John offered desperately.

“BORING! I want to go to the park! I want to play on the swings!”

John took a breath, summoning patience. “Finn, you know you can’t do that, because it’s raining. So let’s think of something else you might like to do. Let’s get out your crayons—“

“BORING!” Finn shouted, with a volume only a five-year-old could produce. He started hopping up and down, repeating that he was bored in a matching rhythm, which actually seemed to occupy him pretty well. Unfortunately it was not really proper ‘indoor’ behavior, and jumping and shouting into the living room where Sherlock was seated on his chair trying to navigate his ‘mind palace’ was exactly the sort of situation John classified as A Bit Not Good.

John could not stand by and watch the trainwreck, however. He hurried after the boy, mind racing to think of any appealing idea. “There’s a McDonald’s with an indoor playground—“ But he realized with a sinking feeling that Finn had gone past the point of rational thought and was now just screaming and stomping because he felt that was his only recourse. “Okay, just calm down, take a deep breath—“

And then the train hit. “SHUT UP!” Sherlock snapped viciously, breaking his ‘thinking’ pose to leap to his feet and loom over the boy. “I am _trying_ to solve a kidnapping! Though why anyone would want a missing child back is beyond me!”

Like any five-year-old who had just been yelled at, Finn froze in fear for a moment, then burst into sobs. Sherlock whirled away in disgust. “John!” he summoned, obviously expecting him to clean up this mess.

And of course John just couldn’t leave. That would be too cruel to them both. Instead he scooped Finn up in his arms. “Shh, shh, calm down,” he soothed, rubbing his back even as he strode through the kitchen and up the stairs. “Come on, it’s alright, you’re alright.”

Finn was an impressive crier but responded well to being held and rocked, and eventually John got him down to a few sniffles as they sat on his bed. Long before then he’d heard the front door slam as Sherlock went out, hopefully with a breakthrough in the case. Which would mean not only was a child saved from harm, but also that his mind would be clear when he came back home. Because John intended to give him quite a talking-to.

“You feel better?” John asked Finn, kissing his dark curls. He nodded slowly and turned a page in the book they were looking at. Picture books were well below his reading level, but he found the drawings comforting to look at sometimes. “Good. When you get upset, it makes me feel bad.”

“Why?” Finn asked damply, truly curious. “Because I was loud?” He’d never had to take anyone else’s feelings into account before.

“No. Because I care about you,” John tried to explain. “And when you’re unhappy, I feel unhappy, too. It doesn’t feel good, how you felt just now, does it?”

Finn shook his head. “It made my tummy hurt,” he described. “And I couldn’t—“ He tensed and shook his arm, and John knew exactly what he meant—he’d seen that gesture before.

“You were frustrated,” John articulated for him. “Because you couldn’t have what you wanted. But you can’t yell and stomp when you feel frustrated. What’s something else you could do instead?”

**

John left him playing quietly with his blocks when he heard the front door slam again. They had not touched on Sherlock’s response to the boy, because John refused to apologize for him. He was hoping Sherlock was going to do that himself.

Not spontaneously, of course.

Sherlock was spinning around the living room when John found him, still high from solving the case, from bringing order to one more patch of chaos. For a second John smiled a little, leaning in the kitchen doorway; then suddenly Sherlock’s grin reminded him of Finn’s and he steeled himself for his next unpleasant purpose. “Triumphant again?” he began.

“Oh, yes, John!” Sherlock agreed, clearly delighted. “It was the nanny! Of course one always thinks of the nanny first, but that’s what was so brilliant, the police had cleared her with their usual incompetence—“

“Found the child safe, did you?” John checked.

“What? Oh, I don’t know, I suppose,” Sherlock dismissed. Clearly this part was unimportant. “Donovan was carrying a child out of the basement, I think.” He gyrated around again and came to a stop in front of John, grabbing his shoulders unexpectedly. “Let’s celebrate,” he said, and John’s mission was immediately derailed.

“Celebrate? How?” Several ideas, increasingly unlikely, flashed unbidden through his mind.

For a moment Sherlock paused, staring into his eyes, and John wondered exactly what ideas were flashing through _his_ mind. Then he blinked and suggested, “We’ll go out to dinner!” He whirled away again. “I may even eat something. Very small. A bit of yours. Angelo’s alright? Oh, you should have _seen_ Anderson’s face when—“

He finally noticed John was not grabbing his coat, or indeed moving from the kitchen doorway at all. And even the half-smile he’d been wearing was gone. “You prefer Chinese?” Sherlock guessed. Silently John pointed above his head and Sherlock’s eyes flickered up to the plaster ceiling. “Oh,” he suddenly realized. “Well, we’ll bring him some back,” he offered, obviously reluctant to involve Finn in their outing. “Um, Mrs. Hudson can watch him. We’ll bring something back for her, too. Indian?” He could tell he was not on the correct path.

“I would love to go out to dinner with you, Sherlock,” John said evenly. “But first you need to go apologize to Finn.”

“What for?” He genuinely had no clue.

“Because you yelled at him, Sherlock,” John explained with a sigh. “And you said a really ghastly thing about not wanting him back if he got kidnapped. He was very upset.”

He could see Sherlock thinking back over his words. “I suppose that’s one interpretation,” he conceded, which was not much concession at all. “Anyway, he’s not crying anymore, is he? You calmed him down.”

“Sherlock.”

Apparently John was serious about this. “John, I was trying to solve a case, and he was _distracting_ me,” Sherlock pointed out. He had an idea. “Oh, is that what you want me to explain to him?”

John’s expression said that wasn’t right. “No, I want you to _apologize_ for yelling at him, and saying that horrible thing,” John repeated. “He was upset, that made _you_ upset, and then you made him even _more_ upset—Sherlock, I just had this conversation with a five-year-old!” he noted in frustration.

“Well you ought to be better at it,” Sherlock judged.

“He’s five, and he was raised in a laboratory with no human contact, and that’s why he doesn’t understand how his actions affect other people,” John spelled out. “What’s _your_ excuse?”

Sherlock stared at him for a long moment, long enough that John thought he might actually have hit a nerve. It was not lost on him that Sherlock and Mycroft hadn’t exactly grown up in a warm, loving environment. With Finn they had a chance to improve, to fix the past in a sense. If they even understood something needed fixing.

“Is that a trick question?” Sherlock finally asked, and John groaned and turned away, thinking this might be too big a job for him. He didn’t think he could parent _two_ children all alone.

Sherlock pulled off his scarf and coat, sensing they would not be going out right away. He didn’t like that expression on John’s face, that body language. It meant John was unhappy, and—inevitable though it sometimes was—he didn’t like John to be unhappy. “Um, John?” he queried. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll go say it?”

This was moving in the correct direction, but not as spot-on as Sherlock had hoped. “Okay,” John accepted, reluctantly. “We’ll do words first, and work on the meaning later.” Sherlock nodded seriously and concentrated intently on John. “Tell him you’re sorry you yelled at him, and you never want him to leave—“

Sherlock frowned, already breaking his offer to say whatever John wanted. “That’s a bit impractical, don’t you think, John?” he pointed out. “I mean, you were just saying he needs to go to school, and—“

He stopped talking at John’s look. “You never want him to leave, and nothing bad will happen to him—“ Sherlock again opened his mouth to protest but John just kept going. “—and if it ever did you would find him and help him. That last bit you can endorse fully, can’t you?” he asked dryly.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed without further thought. Finn was part of him. And John cared about him. Either one guaranteed that Sherlock would do everything in his power to protect him. Or failing that, exact bloody revenge for him.

John seemed slightly startled by the sudden intensity of his gaze. “Right, well, tell him that,” he instructed, clearing his throat. “And don’t make excuses for yourself. Giving an excuse completely invalidates your apology.”

“It does?” Sherlock asked in surprise. Well, that explained a lot of mishaps in his life. Though in his defense, it seemed like not a lot of other people knew about this rule. He trusted John on these matters, though. “Anything else?”

John seemed pleased he was open to suggestion. “Start with that, and, er, just go with the flow,” he encouraged.

Sherlock did not see _that_ going well. “I think I’ve got some earpieces around here,” he said, trying to remember where he’d last seen them. Maybe in the urn? “You could listen and advise me—“

No, wrong. “You’ll be fine,” John insisted optimistically. “Now go on.” John clearly had more faith in Sherlock than Sherlock did in himself here, which was the reverse of most situations—or maybe not, Sherlock reflected as he mounted the stairs with John standing at the bottom, nodding at him. John always seemed to have faith in him, even when it made no logical sense.

**

John was reading a book on the couch when Sherlock returned, slowly and with a strange expression on his face. “You feel okay?” he checked.

“Um, hmm, I feel…” John waited expectantly to hear how that sentence would end; he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard one begin that way from Sherlock. “Nothing,” he finally said, shaking his head dismissively.

He could see John was disappointed, but Sherlock needed to analyze his… _feelings_ first before he could explain them to anyone else. Seeing Finn’s face as he apologized made him feel like he was having an asthma attack—his chest constricting, heart pounding, head woozy—followed by a powerful desire for tactile contact with the boy. Which fortunately Finn didn’t seem to mind, and indeed welcomed.

Still, it was rather disturbing.

Seeing he would get nothing else, John set his book aside. “Well, I’ll go up and make sure he’s down for his nap,” he decided.

“Oh, he’s asleep already,” Sherlock assured him, which surprised John. Usually the lead up to naptime was fraught with more drama than Sherlock could handle. “We read another chapter of _Harry Potter_ and he fell asleep quite readily. He must find the book dull. I don’t understand it at all myself.”

John grinned, but like he was trying to keep it to himself. Obviously he had some insight here that he preferred not to share with Sherlock. “Well, I’ve talked to Mrs. Hudson,” he went on, going for his coat. “She’ll come up when we leave. We _are_ going out for dinner, aren’t we?” he asked, when Sherlock didn’t move towards the door.

“No,” the other man determined, heading for his chair. “I’m going to think for a while.”

“Oh. I thought you solved the case.”

“I _did_.” Surely that was obvious from his earlier behavior. “I do have _other_ things to think about.” Like asthma attack-type feelings.

“Oh.”

Wait—John was _disappointed_. Couldn’t have that. “You can go,” Sherlock encouraged. “I’ll stay here.” Not right. “I’ll listen for Finn when he wakes up.”

No, still not right. “That’s okay,” John shrugged, starting to hang his coat back up.

“Clearly it’s _not_ okay,” Sherlock retorted, getting slightly irritated now. John was a puzzle he never thought he would solve, and that in itself was interesting, but he liked to make a _little_ headway now and then.

“Oh G-d,” John sighed, plopping back down on the couch. He rubbed his eyes, suddenly seeming very tired. Well, what had he done all day that was tiring, he’d just been looking after Finn while Sherlock solved a crime. Although… Sherlock found dealing with Finn exhausting sometimes. His vociferous protests earlier suggested he was not content staying indoors. A discontented Finn was bound to be even more difficult than the usual kind. So maybe John was tired with good reason.

Yet he wanted to go out for dinner. Very curious. Theory needed testing.

Sherlock shifted quickly from his chair to the couch next to John, startling the other man. “I don’t want to go out for dinner,” he said clearly, watching John’s face.

Disappointment, annoyance. “Right, you said that already.”

“No, changed my mind,” Sherlock claimed. “Let’s go out for dinner tonight.”

A frown, more annoyance. “Sherlock, what are you playing at?”

“Don’t muck it up!” Sherlock snapped. He needed valid reactions from his subject. “Now. I would like to go out for dinner with you tonight. Would you like to do that, John?”

A smile. Some confusion, but overall acceptance. “Yes, you mad berk, I would,” he replied, laughing a little.

Well that settled it. “Okay, let’s go out to dinner,” Sherlock repeated, when John was slow about rising and getting his coat. “Angelo’s okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” John agreed, still smiling. “But you promise to eat something, yeah?”

Sherlock grimaced, hoping he wouldn’t have to go that far. “Maybe a tomato slice or something.” He sensed John was going to keep arguing this point, but it didn’t bother him too much. At least John was happy.


	2. Chapter 2

“G-d, I am _bored_ ,” Sherlock moaned from the couch, as though this caused him physical pain.

John did not look up from the newspaper he was reading. “And what do we do when we’re bored?” he asked lightly.

“Why can’t there be a murder or something?” Sherlock went on, voice perilously close to a whine. He ignored John’s response entirely. “A serial killer. Oh, G-d, I would love a really gory serial killer right now—“

“Sherlock,” John interrupted, a bit sharply. He glanced at the door, as though Finn might have silently returned from his baking lesson with Mrs. Hudson—unlikely as that seemed.

Sherlock sat up with a whirl. “Anything in the papers? Anything on the website?” he demanded. “Anything interesting, I mean, beyond the desperate housewives with straying husbands and the grannies who think someone’s trying to off them for their pension savings.”

His tone was dripping with disdain for said people. “Yes, you _do_ attract a broad segment of the female population,” John commented dryly.

Sherlock stood and started to pace, practically running into the walls on either side of the small room. John finally put the paper down or risk going mad himself. “Why don’t you go out for a walk—“

“Walk _where_?” Sherlock snapped. “Walking is boring!”

“Go down to the morgue, see if Molly—“

“BORING!”

“Go to Scotland Yard, ask Lestrade about—“

“BORING!”

“See if Mrs. Hudson will—“

“BORING! I want a new case! I want to solve a new murder!”

John felt a curious sense of déjà vu. “You know you can’t just summon those out of thin air,” he said, trying to be patient and ignore the fact that solving a murder meant someone had to die first. “So let’s think of something else you might like to do. There’s a new exhibit at the science museum—“

“BORING!” Sherlock shouted, with a volume only an adult with no sense of social boundaries could produce. He started stomping across the floor, repeating that he was bored in a matching rhythm.

John sat watching him with his chin on his hand, and really wished he had a camera to capture the moment Sherlock froze mid-declaration, then slid his eyes over to John. “Is that what it looks like,” John asked archly, “when you suddenly realize you’re acting _exactly_ like a five-year-old?”

He could see Sherlock trying to come up with a way to justify himself. John waited expectantly. Then Sherlock threw himself back on the couch in defeat. “Well, he had a point,” he muttered. “I just can’t—“ He gritted his teeth and shook his arm, and John smiled a little.

“You’re frustrated because you can’t have what you want,” he stated.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed shortly, rubbing his face.

“Well, maybe next time you get frustrated, you could do something else, instead of yelling and stomping,” John suggested evenly. “Can you think of anything else you could do?”

Sherlock looked over at him sharply. “Did you have this same conversation with Finn?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t sound offended and John made an effort to not sound patronizing. “What were some of the ideas for _him_?”

“Thinking of something that made him happy, tensing all his muscles and then relaxing them, taking deep breaths—“

“We’re not giving _birth_ , John,” Sherlock interrupted, though not as snidely as he might have, and John grinned a little.

“Why don’t you take Finn to the park?” he proposed. “Release some energy for both of you.”

“I hate the park,” Sherlock claimed, rolling over to put his back to John.

“No, you don’t,” John contradicted. “Go and push him on the swings and turn the merry-go-round for him.”

“There will be other children there.” This was a definite negative. “And their _parents_.”

“Yes, very likely.” John frowned as a thought occurred to him. “Does that make you anxious?”

“No,” Sherlock answered, too quickly.

John nodded slowly. “It’s hard to talk to people you don’t know sometimes,” he stated neutrally.

“I talk to people I don’t know all the time,” Sherlock shot back grumpily.

John was not sure that interrogating murder suspects really counted. “I meant ‘you’ in a general sense,” he clarified anyway. “It’s difficult for everyone.”

“It’s not difficult for _you_ ,” Sherlock insisted. He did not sound exactly envious, more that he just wanted to prove John wrong. “Unless you’re trying to chat someone up, then you’re just pathetic.”

John leaned over and swatted his rear end with his newspaper, making Sherlock jump. “Take Finn to the park,” he said firmly. “Play with him. If you have to talk to the other parents, just ask them questions about themselves. _Nice_ questions,” he tried to specify. “People like to talk about themselves. And when in doubt—smile.” Sherlock turned over and grimaced at him. “I’ll join you in half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” Sherlock glanced at the clock.

“From when you two actually _leave_ for the park, not from now,” John pointed out. Both Sherlock and Finn were champions at dragging out their preparations to leave for somewhere.

For a moment he thought Sherlock would continue to resist. Then he rolled over and stood up suddenly. “Fine, alright,” he agreed grudgingly.

John felt cautiously optimistic as he watched him head for his room to change. “And try to have _fun_ ,” he advised.

**

Take Finn to the park, John had said. You’ll enjoy it, he said. John obviously had a low estimate of Sherlock’s intelligence, incredible as it seemed, because what sort of moron enjoyed standing in the _sand_ and repeatedly pushing a child on a swing?

“Daddy,” Finn prompted. “Are you going to push me now?” The boy twisted around to look at him from the swing. Daddy had something against sand and always took a little coaxing to get started.

“Aren’t you able to propel yourself?” Sherlock asked him, still standing in the grass away from the equipment. “That’s the point of a swing, isn’t it? It’s not a see-saw.”

“D’you want to ride the see-saw with me instead?” Finn seized eagerly.

“No,” Sherlock denied immediately. One unfortunate incident had been enough to deter Sherlock on that forever.

But, at least he and Finn were alone in this part of the park today, so he didn’t actually have to talk to any—“Hi, Finn!” said a cheerful, high-pitched voice, and Sherlock cringed.

“Hi, Cimmy!” Finn greeted in return, as the blond, freckled girl bounded over to the neighboring swing.

“Hello, Mr. Holmes,” she chirped, just when he thought maybe he’d escape her notice. “You’re wearing your blue scarf again today. Is that your favorite scarf?”

“Hello, um… Tambourine,” Sherlock struggled to reply. He was certain the resonance frequency of her voice was giving him a migraine, and refused to even contemplate her inane question.

“It’s Cimorene,” she corrected matter-of-factly.

“Right,” Sherlock replied randomly, already trying to blot her from his field of view. The only thing worse than this relentlessly perky creature was—

“Oh, hi, Sherlock.”

“Oh G-d,” Sherlock sighed heavily, and the blond woman following her daughter raised an eyebrow at him.

“Hi, Cimmy’s mom,” Finn said to her.

“Why, hello there, Finn, how are you doing today?” the woman asked him pleasantly.

“Today I’m sad because Daddy won’t push me on the swing,” Finn responded morosely, raising his eyes to Sherlock in a manner reminiscent of a wounded animal.

Sherlock knew he was faking. But the effort impressed him. “Alright, that’s good,” he judged critically. “Don’t forget the chin wobble like I showed you. No, no, too much, you look like you’re about to have a seizure.”

Finn’s expression morphed cleanly into eager anticipation. “Come _on_ , Daddy!”

Sherlock glanced over at the blond woman, who was pushing _her_ little mini-Me on the swing readily enough, and felt the suffocating weight of peer pressure. He risked a glance at his phone and despaired at the amount of time left until John arrived. Then he took a deep breath and stepped into the sand.

Finn cheered encouragingly, which Sherlock appreciated—it was sort of like John telling him he was brilliant, only louder and without words—and Sherlock started pushing him. It was always awkward at first, but then they built up a rhythm, and Sherlock was able to think about the physics on display and how best to explain them to the boy, so at least this outing would be educational.

Finn had other questions in mind, though. “While I was with Mrs. Hudson,” he began, and they had to wait until he swung back into hearing range for Sherlock, “did you and John have an argument?”

“No,” Sherlock denied, finding the suggestion preposterous. “John and I don’t argue.” As he said this, a strange twinge told him John would dispute that if he were here; but he _wasn’t_ here right now, was he? So there. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, while I was with Mrs. Hudson,” Finn repeated tediously, “we heard thumping and shouting coming from upstairs.” Sherlock grimaced slightly. He would not concede to having thrown a temper tantrum. But maybe he’d been a _bit_ loud. “And I thought you and John were having an argument, and I ought to come back up. But Mrs. Hudson said I shouldn’t, that you were having grown-up time.”

“Hmm, grown-up time,” Sherlock mused thoughtfully. “A bit juvenile, but I suppose it’s alright. Yes, John and I were having grown-up time,” he agreed confidently. There was a small noise from off to the side, but when Sherlock glanced over the blond woman was staring straight ahead as she pushed her daughter on the swing. Her face was somewhat flushed though, and Sherlock glanced up at the sky, assessing whether he ought to have brought sun protection for Finn. John hadn’t pushed it on them when they left, though, and he was the one who usually thought of those things.

“What _is_ grown-up time?” Finn wanted to know. “Mrs. Hudson said to ask you about it. Well, actually she said to ask _John_ ,” he clarified.

Sherlock frowned at this distinction. “I’m perfectly capable of answering that question appropriately,” he huffed. “Grown-up time is time without _you_ , obviously. We used to have a lot of grown-up time before _you_ came along.”

“Is that what you’re having when John gets all tense and pulls you into the bedroom?” Finn asked.

“Excellent observation,” Sherlock praised him, though he could do without remembering all the times John had taken him aside to chide him about some obscure parenting rule he’d broken—he’d thought to _sterilize_ all the insects before he and Finn tried eating them, after all. “Before you were here we didn’t have to stay in the bedroom, we could be all over the flat.”

“It doesn’t seem to take very long.”

“Well, John’s got it down to a science.” Sherlock appreciated the efficiency with which John could chastise him now, it saved a lot of time.

“Hi, John!” Finn shouted suddenly, and Sherlock almost missed catching him on the backswing, such was his relief at John’s appearance.

“Thank G-d!” Sherlock exclaimed, bounding over to him. “Oh, is that coffee?” He deduced which cup was his and snatched it up eagerly.

“Well, don’t neglect your child,” John advised dryly. “Hello, Melanie. Hi, Cimmy!” The two blond females greeted him in return. “Have you been having a nice conversation?” he asked Sherlock, with a significant glance at them.

“Oh, I forgot,” Sherlock realized, and John gave him an exasperated look for failing in his mandate. Sherlock decided a redirect was in order. “Finn and I were having a very good conversation,” he offered instead. “Finn, tell John what we were talking about.” For some reason John believed it more if it came from the boy directly.

“We were talking about having grown-up time,” Finn responded brightly, still swinging on his own, “and Mrs. Hudson said I ought to ask you about it, because of the shouting and thumping.”

John’s ears went pink and his eyes widened, and he choked slightly on his coffee. Sherlock watched him with a frown, making sure he was alright. Unlikely a small amount of liquid down the wrong tube would cause permanent damage, though. “Shouting and, er, thumping?” he asked faintly, when he could. He kept throwing darting glances at the blond woman but when Sherlock looked over at her she just appeared to be smiling slightly and interacting with her offspring.

“Yes, earlier this morning,” Sherlock prompted. Surely John remembered. “He was worried we were arguing, but of course we weren’t, and I thought Mrs. Hudson’s label of ‘grown-up time’ seemed apt.”

John was making some sort of complicated expression. Sherlock hated those. It seemed to be a kind of war between the expression he _wanted_ to make, and the expression he thought he _ought_ to make, and between the two the landscape got too muddled for Sherlock to puzzle out. That didn’t seem fair.

“Uh-huh, well actually, what happened was—“

“John,” Sherlock interrupted, slightly reproachful. “I don’t think he needs _details_.” He did not want to say he was _embarrassed_ at having a minor fit of temper, but the memory was unpleasant and could yield no useful lessons for the boy, he was sure.

“Mmm, right.” John seemed very conflicted about something. Could be totally unrelated to the present situation, though, Sherlock reasoned; this was hardly the sort of thing one got upset about.

Or was it? Perhaps Sherlock ought not to make that assumption about John, the man had surprised him often enough. “Do you want to call it something else?” he inquired, and John looked… _hunted_ was the word that came to mind. “’Grown-up time’ is a bit childish, I suppose. We could call it ‘adult time’ or ‘adult activities’ if ‘time’ is too passive—“

John coughed again a few times, though he hadn’t sipped his coffee in two-point-three minutes. “No, no, I think it’s fine,” he claimed, clearing his throat.

Sherlock nodded, taking his word for it. “Do you want to push Finn on the swing?” he offered. Maybe he was feeling deprived of direct contact with the child.

“Maybe we could try the slide instead,” John suggested, eyeing the pair of females next to them.

“Oh, alright. I find swinging very tedious anyway—“ John was making an _expression_ again. “—um, although I suppose it provides a certain vicarious thrill—“ No, still wrong. Maybe he was supposed to check with Finn. “Er, how about the slide, Finn?”

“Alright!” the boy agreed cheerfully, hopping off the swing once it was safe. “Not the tall one, though,” he specified a bit anxiously.

“We can use the short one,” Sherlock promised him. “John, I’ll be at the top and you be at the bottom, that seems to—“

“Oh my G-d,” John muttered, shaking his head.

“—to be quite comfortable,” Sherlock finished uncertainly. He was taller and could reach the top of the slide more easily if Finn needed reassurance, but perhaps there was some negative aspect to waiting at the foot that he hadn’t considered. “Do you want to switch? I’m open to switching.”

“Just stop talking,” John requested, confoundingly.

Sherlock was not offended by this; in fact, he was pleased John could be honest about when he was being irritating. Although, Sherlock couldn’t really learn if he didn’t understand why. “John, did I—“

They were by the slides now, and John snickered—so he didn’t seem to be _angry_ at Sherlock. Though this was even _more_ perplexing. “I’ll explain later,” John promised, and Sherlock nodded readily. Sounded like they would definitely need some grown-up time in the near future.


End file.
